Titans' Scaife 'day-to-day' with knee injury

Tight end Bo Scaife was declared “day-to-day” with a left knee injury after an MRI on Friday.

Scaife suffered a left knee injury that appeared to be some sort of sprain on the opening series of the second half of Thursday night’s 13-10 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Scaife was hit by the Steelers’ James Harrison and fumbled on the play, causing a turnover when Keyaron Fox recovered for Pittsburgh.

“We did the MRI. The results came back good. He doesn’t have an awful lot of swelling and we’ll just list him as day-to-day right now,” Titans coach Jeff Fisher said.

Scaife had indicated in one report that he felt Harrison’s shot on him was a cheap one, but Fisher downplayed that on Friday.

“When the ball carrier has got the ball, he’s a runner, and the defender can tackle him any way he wants. I think the defender was already driving and he was driving him low. It was just a strange set of circumstances,” Fisher said. “Bo catches the ball and he turns up the sideline, he’s tackled low, and we’ve got a first down. But Bo tried to make the catch and come back underneath him to keep things alive and try to run after the catch, and got his leg planted.”

With the Titans having opened the season on Thursday night, Scaife will have 10 days to heal instead of the usual seven when the Titans host the Houston Texans on Sept. 20.

The Titans are expected to have tight end Jared Cook back for that game as well. Cook missed the opener with an ankle injury.

Scaife had five catches for 48 yards for the Titans before the injury.
As for other injuries, Fisher said receiver Nate Washington did fine in coming back from a hamstring injury.

“We wouldn’t have played Nate had he been unable to play. We got 26 plays out of him, and he was fine,” Fisher said of the free-agent pickup from the Steelers, who had one catch for 8 yards against his former team.

Fisher indicated that rookie cornerback Ryan Mouton, who was inactive with an ankle injury, had healed enough to play against the Steelers, but did not get enough reps during the week to warrant keeping him on the 45-man game day active roster.

Also, linebacker David Thornton was, as Fisher termed “banged up,” forcing middle linebacker Stephen Tulloch to stay in in most of the team’s nickel situations.

Return engagement

The Titans had their share of issues on punts and kickoffs in the opener, but Fisher insists that the Titans will be OK with the status quo in that department.

Cornerback Cortland Finnegan, who had previously fielded five punts in 2007, handled the punt return duties, with 14 yards on four punt returns. He muffed one catch, but recovered, and also let the opening punt go past him to be downed at the 2-yard line.

Fisher indicated that Mouton could get the call against the Texans, as he was pleased with his work in preseason.

“Ryan, I thought did a good job for us in the preseason. He’ll be back, so we’ll be able to use Cortland and/or Ryan when he comes back. He’ll be 100 percent this week,” Fisher said.

As for kickoff returns, Fisher said Javon Ringer needed to work on his timing.

“I thought [for] Javon, the ball was moving around a little bit. Had he caught the ball moving forward, we had some creases,” Fisher said of the rookie. “The difference between catching a kickoff moving back, taking a step back, and moving through the kick is the difference in timing it up and the timing and everything. And the ball was moving. So, you saw what he did during the preseason. He can do that, and I also feel like Ryan can do it. At this point, I’m not looking around.”

Not shopping?

Speaking of looking around, Fisher indicated that the Titans are currently not planning to sign any players to the roster between now and Sept. 20 against the Texans.

The Titans worked out receiver Matt Jones recently and apparently had interest in him, but will stand pat for now, says Fisher.

Also, Fisher said the Titans won’t at the present pursue any kick returners from the outside, such as former Titan Bobby Wade or recently released cornerback Justin Miller.

“We are correcting what we are doing and are happy with where the roster is right now,” Fisher said. “That doesn’t mean to say if somebody pops up that we look at or work out. Just because we work them out doesn’t mean we are going to sign them.”

Rough night

Right tackle David Stewart not only had a false start against the Steelers, but also was called twice for not being on the line of scrimmage, an illegal formation penalty.

“Dave was back a little deep. Basically, what happens and I hope this is called consistently, but when the visiting team is on offense and it’s loud and you’re in passing situations and you can’t hear, that’s a natural tendency to back up just a little bit especially when you got wide linebackers, and that’s what happened,” Fisher said.
“Dave was warned early, I talked to Dave, talked to the officials, next series he got back a little bit and he was called for it and then called for it one more time.”